Better VSCode OCaml Experience on Windows

Ecosystem
1

Developing OCaml was not easy on Windows platform. If you want to use VSCode, you have to install ocaml-on-windows (which has some compatibility issues) or forword X windows from WSL or a linux machine (slow).

Microsoft just release Remote Development with VS Code, which allows you to open any folders and run any programs in WSL or any remote machines.

  • Develop on the same operating system you deploy to or use larger, faster, or more specialized hardware than your local machine.
  • Quickly swap between different, isolated development environments and safely make updates without worrying about impacting your local machine.
  • Help new team members / contributors get productive quickly with easily spun up, consistent development containers.
  • Take advantage of a Linux based tool-chain right from the comfort of Windows from a full-featured development tool.

I think this can attract more people using Windows to use OCaml with simple setup.

2 Likes
2

This is really impressive, particularly as we have quite a large matrix of OCaml Docker containers that are regularly rebuilt. I’ll give the Docker support a spin as well next time I fire up VS Studio!

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